Some people would rather not hear from their lenders

I don’t find this surprising. Who’s the last person you want to talk with if you’re underwater and can’t make your loan payments? Your lender.

Some borrowers probably skipped town … and some probably never existed (LOL!).

Mortgage lenders are going door-to-door in some parts of the country to track down borrowers who are behind on their payments and help them work out a solution …

… Hard to track down, no-contact borrowers, as the industry calls them, are in the majority. From September 2005 to August 2007, 53 percent of the loans backed by Freddie Mac that went into foreclosure involved borrowers who could not be reached.

Wells Fargo estimated that it had no contact with about 30 percent of delinquent homeowners who went into foreclosure in 2006.

Last year, it began testing envelopes in bold or unusual colors or resembling wedding invitations as a way to get these customers to open their mail.

Hmmm. Wait, I have an idea. How about putting the notices in envelopes with Sen. Chris Dodd’s face on the outside saying, “You may have won … a free home!”

Source: Lenders Find Owners Late on Payments – By Renae Merle, The Washington Post, by way of Realtor.org